Highlights from the Venice Biennale

Highlights from the Venice Biennale - 2019

Below are some of my artist highlights from the Venice Biennale this year. Each artist represented here profiles the experience of people of colour, simultaneously 'decentering' the Western canon so prevalent within the arts. The images selected make visible the 'Black body' in various environments and guises, and can be seen as drawing attention to the 'hyper-visibility' of the 'Black body' in society on the one hand, whilst on the other hand Black people have historically been rendered 'invisible' in art history.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Kudzanai Violet-Hwami

Henry Taylor

Khalil Joseph

Tavares Strachan

Henry Taylor

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Remembering to write...

Before I had a love of art, I had a love of literature. I loved to read, it was my escape from life, my place of comfort, I could think of nothing better than disappearing into a world of love and adventure, of long lost worlds and heroic characters, only resurfacing hours later when brought back to reality by my mother's voice; "can you set the table?!" As my love of literature grew, I began to write my own stories and by the time I was 9 years old I loved to write as much as I loved to read, with 3 full length stories under my belt. Problems arose when I wanted to illustrate my stories (I didn't think I could draw), I wasted no time in enlisting the help of my older brother (I knew he could draw), who to my utter surprise and dismay (at the time and now a little bit, if I'm honest) ''had better things to do with his time!" . What was a girl to do? Well, I taught myself how to draw and their began my love of art, but sadly in the process of learn...

Bodies Out of Place - INGRID POLLARD ‘Pastoral Interlude’ 1988

Visual arts and literature can both be said to be modes by which we can explore the human condition. Through them we can encounter new perspectives, new realities and discover new possibilities. We can also question who is allowed to speak, and who is spoken for. These possibilities show only some of the many connections between the two art forms, and thus creates a basis within which interdisciplinary bridges can be created. Ingrid Pollard is a photographer, media artist and researcher based in the UK. Her art practice is concerned with representation, history and landscape with reference to race, difference and the materiality of lens-based media. The work of Pollard which I am looking at here focuses on the idyllic, romanticised representation of British countryside that Pollard disrupts and challenges through the juxtaposition of issues of around identity and belonging. Photography and text are placed together each a necessary part of the issues that Pollard wants to ...

Chiharu Shiota's 'Dialogues' exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsall

Chiharu Shiota is a Japanese artist who now lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Her work is on show at The New Art Gallery Walsall until 30 th March. She has a variety of work on show including two site specific installation works which are the focus of this post. Henry Giroux (2005) in his book Border Crossings talked of people in the 21 st century occupying ‘multiple, contradictory, and complex subject positions…within different social, cultural and economic locations’ (Giroux 2005:13). It could be said that the work of Chiharu Shiota allows the exploration of such positions. Through her work we travel to and occupy a range of social and cultural spaces, we are able to connect with unknown people from various locations, whose stories we may see in the gallery, but yet somehow we can never fully understand or be a part of. Shiota’s work has journeyed from a far and permitted us the opportunity to navigate within and to temporarily cross boundaries and b...

Kuandika

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